What we are seeing is that, as the LulzSec hackings proved, is that information is more important than profit.

Be a big corporation negligent of retention of customer data. Blame your negligence on somebody else. Convince the dumb bullies in charge of America's security cyberinfrastructure (there are a lot of spoiled rich kids who play those games, after all) that terrorists are breaking the whole thing down. It's the invisible manufactured terror-pedos' fault, not the blatant negligence of the card-hold

I don't know much about military stuff, but "Nuclear power plant design and safety plans" probably aren't all that secret or even very interesting. Pressurized Water Reactors aren't exactly cutting edge technology and stealing their plans doesn't really enable you to do anything you couldn't otherwise do.

Good point. Seems like during WWII, the Germans always had better tech than we had. Not that we should play it that way deliberately, but other factors do weigh in the equation. Ever read Arthur Clarke's short story, "Superiority"?

They didn't have better tech in general; they mostly had a lot of flashy tech of questionable value and negligible quantity. In one widely used item they were hugely ahead: the MG-42 machine gun. It replaced a host of varied automatic weapons carried by the Allies, and was far, far superior to any of them.

The V-1 and V-2 were vast wastes of resources which they only undertook because they couldn't field a competitive air force after a couple of years outside their own territory, or even over their own terri

this rough WWII quote still seems to hold true according to (old) news of friendly fire in Iraq. It seems like the U.S. has a lot of war technology, but ill-trained troops. against a well trained army of most sizes, I would place my bets on the well trained army.

I'll just point out that last time that happened, the "well-trained" army [wikipedia.org] got crushed like a bug. The thing to keep in mind here is that friendly fire reports are a major case of observer bias. You're not going to hear about corresponding cases from other countries because either, they don't do anything risky or they don't report it to the media.

The link above is to the Persian Gulf War, the last time someone of serious military power attempted to fight a pitched battle with a US-led army. In that case,

Turn the Gulf war around and you have China vs. US. Yes, the US has more experience, but China simply tosses more material behind it. Old joke: US vs. China war. First week, a million Chinese war prisoners. Second week, two million Chinese war prisoners. Third week, three million Chinese war prisoners. Fourth week, telegram from Beijing to Washington: "Now what, do you surrender or do we have to continue?"

Turn the Gulf war around and you have China vs. US. Yes, the US has more experience, but China simply tosses more material behind it. Old joke: US vs. China war. First week, a million Chinese war prisoners. Second week, two million Chinese war prisoners. Third week, three million Chinese war prisoners. Fourth week, telegram from Beijing to Washington: "Now what, do you surrender or do we have to continue?"

The
target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust
port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the
reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should
destroy the station. Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction.

engineering diagrams are unlikely to include security systems, deployments or proceedures.

anyone looking to build a reactor could sure use a complete set of plans to save a lot of money on design and testing, espeicially if they can examine public records on the real world performance of the design they stole to confirm before the first shovel hits dirt that the design is a sound and worthy design

I can speak from a little bit (and I stress 'little bit') of inside information on this particular topic in that MHI spends far less on IT than you could possibly imagine. What's more, their reliance on outside sources for their services and support is frightening.

At the end of the day, we live in the information age and the most precious things we have is information. And to spend as little as they do protecting it, one has to think they are doing it wrong and suffer from some really bad or old ideas.

But you know, Japan is pretty bad about that in general. They are still largely a "job for life" company which means their business culture doesn't vary much. They don't see or understand how others do it. So whatever service and support they get, it's "normal" to them. And new ideas are foreign ideas... and we already know how they are about foreign ideas.

It actually kinda makes me angry that they sat on the information the way they did... same as the way TEPCO sat on critical data and information surrounding the Fukushima disaster. And I have to say that it was "confirmed" in August that it happened. Do you have any idea how long it takes for them to "confirm" something like this? In my experience, they first got the hint probably a month prior or even more. Their notion of proof requires a LOT of evidence -- they are very thorough, detailed and complete in this way.

TEPCO and MHI were and are very slow to respond to emergencies and care more for their "face saving" than resolving problems. Perhaps I am just an American judging them by American standards and ideals. But I have to say I believe resolving the problems and learning important lessons would come first with me and it doesn't seem to come first with them.

I can speak from a little bit (and I stress 'little bit') of inside information on this particular topic in that MHI spends far less on IT than you could possibly imagine. What's more, their reliance on outside sources for their services and support is frightening

That's true for much of the corporate world. IT is seen as a cost-center that is a necessary evil rather than an asset to the company.

Systems won't get secured because it costs too much. Same with upgrading to the next release of software (since th

erroneus, I think you hit it spot on with your points. I spent some time working in Japan and concerning the cultural aspects, I made the same observations that you mentioned. Although strong in technical diversity and innovation, perhaps Japan needs to expand its diversity and innovation in the area of business culture.

Oh man, let me tell you about that whole saving-face thing. It's not strictly Japanese. That attitude is more or less a common theme among most of the Eastern world. I'm not sure if Indian culture is this way or not though.But anyways, ya. The Chinese and Korean are all about that saving-face thing. As American, I could care less about that concept. But to my native Chinese wife, it's a very serious thing. I suppose this attitude centers around protecting the family first and foremost. But perhaps someone e

I grew up in the States but am east Asian by ethnicity/heritage and have some knowledge of east Asian culture (though obviously my parents didn't think too highly of it, otherwise they probably would've made a more concerted effort to educate/indoctrinate me about it).

The concept is quite simple, it's primarily about bolstering external perception in order to promote the reputation of a group that one self-identities with - be that the family, the company, or the country. You define an in-group and an out-group, and within the in-group honesty and transparency is permitted (at least with respect to the domain of the in-group, you're not going to be sharing family secrets with your co-workers, for example). However, when it comes to the out-group, every effort is made to give the appearance that activities within the in-group are efficient, successful, "harmonious" (i.e. lack of conflict between members of the in-group) - in other words, bury all dirty secrets and make everything look utopian, even if it isn't. Transparency is discouraged because it is bad PR, and members of the out-group (i.e. the rest of society) are expected to have lower expectations as to the amount of information that is provided through "official" channels. So in order to obtain such information, members of the out-group turn to gossip, espionage, etc.

I wouldn't say that "Western" culture (I hate that term because I reject the existence of that distinction as philosophically valid) doesn't practice "face-saving" to some degree, it just isn't taken to the extremes that it is in east Asia because of societal expectations regarding transparency and accountability. I for one think that this is one area where people in China, Korea, and Japan can learn a lot from "Western" countries. After all, face-saving is simply an aspect of tribalism, institutionalized.

The difference is that Western corporations do it out of self-interest (as in protecting the individual), whereas corporations in east Asia do it to protect the individual _and_ to "protect the group." That's two hurdles to transparency and accountability as opposed to one. I am not qualified to comment on the normalized (say, by economic influence) magnitudes of transparency and accountability violations in different countries (an empirical question), but at least in terms of underlying psychological motivation, that's one more mental barrier that needs to be overcome.

So no need to get all riled up about the follies of Western corporations because I am well aware of those - I am simply stating that from the perspective of culturally ingrained notions, east Asians tend to have even more misplaced loyalty than Westerners (who are already bad enough).

The Japanese (and most Asian people) are a proud sort and don't like admitting failure. Admitting failure is a gross sign of weakness, second only to the failure itself. This seems rather counter-productive to me but it's a societal and cultural thing, so I have no avenue to judge.

TEPCO and MHI were and are very slow to respond to emergencies and care more for their "face saving" than resolving problems. Perhaps I am just an American judging them by American standards and ideals. But I have to say I believe resolving the problems and learning important lessons would come first with me and it doesn't seem to come first with them.

Isn't that the opposite of the American business way? From my understanding of the two cultures, a Japanese business would work on resolving the immediate crisis and then work out who was responsible for it later. Whereas a Western company would focus on who was responsible first, and then what to do about it after that.

...except in cyber-warfare, obviously. If I were them, I'd be planning mock 'hacking raids' on their facilities every second week with external and internal software. Two teams alternating attacking and defending with random member swaps after every cycle and in depth discussions on what both sides did after each 'battle'.

Years ago Mitsubishi got in trouble for hiding complaints by truck drivers and other owners/operators. Among other defects the wheels would fall off and injure/kill people or the axles would break. Frustrated owners/operators would document this and send the complaints to Mitsubishi. In some attempt to pretend they never received the complaints someone decided to secretly hide these letters and forms in a LOCKER in the MEN'S LOCKER ROOM.

not only that, Mitsubishi was also responsible for hiding the defective fuel tank of its A6M aircraft from the American public. It was only discovered after examining the wreckage of the plane that went down in the Aleutian islands that we finally learned the truth: that it was unarmored, non-self-sealing, and prone to exploding when hit by gunfire. Mitsubishi never owned up to it, nor take the necessary steps to remedy the problem.

Absurd. Jesus Christ, ALL aircraft fuel tanks were unarmored in WW-II. An aircraft has to be light. Armor is incredibly heavy; they hadn't any kevlar. Armor was used very judiciously, mostly confined to small slabs around the pilot. I think what you're looking for is the fact they were not self-sealing. They didn't have any armor for the pilot, or fire extinguishers either. None of this was a "defect." It was not a matter of stupidity or incompetence. They made a deliberate decision to value speed, maneuver